


Lachesis' Knot

by Purrs



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Child Abuse, Child Death, Gen, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-08-11 12:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20153554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purrs/pseuds/Purrs
Summary: Aaronev holds his son to a high standard, which he will live up to. No matter how many tries it takes.





	1. Chapter 1

“Why are you here?” his father asks, when Tarvek dismounts the airship and steps onto the too-still stone of Sturmhalten.

“The Baron caught me spying. He wouldn’t let me stay,” he says, his mouth shaping the words but his mind still reeling from _ Gil, Gil, why— _

“That much is clear, yes.” His father scowls. “And here you are, perfectly happy to fall in line with what the Baron decrees. What of the poison pills I sent you with?”

He catches his lip between his teeth, directs his gaze down and away. “I—I didn’t think—”

“That’s right. You didn’t.” His father draws a death ray and aims it at Tarvek’s head. “Understand that I’m only doing this because of _ your _ failures.”

Tarvek nods miserably.

“Be better.” His father pulls the trigger.

Tarvek’s heaving great gasps of air down his throat hands on his knees head spinning _ alive_.

Gil stops a few paces ahead of him, turns his head back. “Tarvek! What happened? Are you okay?”

He makes himself slow his breathing and straighten his back. He tries to speak, but nothing comes out. He wets his lips and tries again. “Yeah, I’m. I’m fine. Tripped, that’s all. C’mon, let’s go.”

“Okay!” Gil’s face brightens again. “Look, we’re almost there!” Just as he said, the door to the archives is right in front of them.

Tarvek doesn’t know what to do. So he just...goes along with it, on automatic pilot, while inside his head he’s thinking and thinking and _ thinking_. There’s not enough _ time _ to get out of this. Five minutes earlier, maybe, but not now. So he just has to...mitigate the damage.

They find the sausage-maker story. Looking at it again, it seems even more fake. Not that Gil will listen. When Gil runs off, Tarvek chases after him. They both get caught at the same time, now, but the Baron wants to talk to Gil alone before he lets Tarvek in.

Looking at Gil again, it hurts even more.

Tarvek gets sent home.

“Be better.”

He crumples down to the floor and he ignores the panicked noises Gil’s making and he stands back up and he _ runs_. Runs away from the door, runs away from Gil. Runs to his room and grabs all his notes, everything he’s written down over the months, takes them from behind the light fixture and puts them _ in _ the light fixture until they crisp and crackle into illegibility.

A pair of Jagers come and haul him to the Baron, tutting about how cowardly it is to abandon your “brudder” when the going gets rough.

Tarvek gets sent home.

“Be better.”

He tries to pull Gil away, but he won’t leave.

Tarvek gets sent home.

“Be better.”

_ “Be better.” _

** _“Be better.”_ **

Tarvek screams.


	2. Chapter 2

“You sent me home tomorrow,” he tells the Baron. “My father didn’t like it.”

“I don’t particularly care what your father thinks,” the Baron says.

“Please,” he says. “Let me stay.”

The Baron’s eyes flash to Gil, sitting in the other chair, and back to Tarvek. “I don’t think I will.”

He gets sent home and he leaves the airship and he tells his father that he’s tried and tried and it doesn’t _ work_. He begs, he begs, he _ begs_. He has no shame.

“Be better.”

The minutes he spends arguing with his father are minutes shaved off the time he has onboard the Castle. Now, by the time he’s sent back, he and Gil are already _ in _ the archives rather than just _ outside _ them. He’s lost time.

He barricades himself (and Gil) into the archives. There’s got to be _ something _ useful in here.

“Be better.”

He’s learned everything he can from the files in this room and he spills some of the juiciest things to the Baron. “I’ll tell everyone if you send me home. I’ll tell everything.”

“Be better.”

There’s something the Baron doesn’t want him finding out. He’s going to find it if it kills him. (He laughs, and laughs, and laughs, because it already has.)

“Be better.”

It takes him seventy-nine straight hours’ worth of sleeplessness (or seven, from another perspective) for him to get it. That, and seeing Gil and the Baron and Gil again and again and both of them scowling at him with the same expression like _ how dare he_.

He’s in the Baron’s office with Gil again and Gil glares at him and it all just _ clicks_. “Your nose,” he says.

“What?”

Tarvek grabs Gil’s face and pulls it close, hands squashing his cheeks. “You’ve got the Baron’s nose. You’re _ the Baron’s son_. _ That’s _ what he’s hiding, _ that’s _ what this is all about!”

The Baron coughs. Tarvek looks up, and, oh. The Baron looks downright murderous.

“Go ahead and kill me,” Tarvek says, shutting his eyes against what he knows is coming.

The words hang in the air. “I’m not going to kill you,” the Baron says, perturbed.

Tarvek doesn’t know how to handle this, doesn’t have a plan, so he stands up and makes for the door. “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”

“_You’ll what_” and “_Tarvek no_” ring out simultaneously.

He pauses, looking back. “Look, it’s fine. No trouble at all. I’ll just...I’ll just get it over with.”

The Baron’s got a firm grip on the bridge of his nose. “You are going to _ sit down _ so we can continue this discussion, not _ commit suicide_. Nothing you have done warrants _ death_.”

“Tell that to my father,” slips from between Tarvek’s lips before he can stop himself.


	3. Chapter 3

The Baron’s eyes meet Tarvek’s in a way that allows for no denial. “What has your father done?” 

“What _ hasn’t _ my father done,” he says, because apparently today is spill-all-his-secrets day. Fine, whatever. He already planned on dying anyway, he might as well vent. “Killed me...twenty-two times, I think? Twenty-three? Seventeen hours from now, or a little less. Not that he knows it, of course.” Gil starts to say something, but Tarvek plows on. “He won’t let me off the Castle, he won’t _ let me _ fail him, you keep sending me off and he keeps sending me right back with a death ray between the eyes and I don’t have enough _ time _ to change things so I just get sent back home. I tried to keep him from doing it once by giving him a lot of information, yes _ okay _ I was spying but so is everyone it’s not just me, it's not _ fair_—but, but I _ tried_, and he didn’t think what I had was worth it, and all that got me was _ less time _ to work with, and.”

In the time it takes for Tarvek to take a breath to continue, the Baron holds up a palm. “Stop. Go back. What’s the cause of all this?”

“The Storm King had this thing where if someone killed him—we call it Lachesis’ Knot, like the Fate—if someone killed him, he went back in time twenty-four hours, and so he could avoid the assassin or whoever. And he passed it on to some of his children, and I’ve got it because I’m his heir.” Tarvek makes a face. “Well, Tweedle too, I guess, but _ I’m _ gonna be the next Storm King. _And_ I’m gonna find the Muses, and repair them, and I’ll have them in the Knot with me just like Andronicus.”

“...Right.” The Baron purses his lips. “Well. That is a rather pretty story you have there. Can you prove it?”

Tarvek thinks for a bit. “Tell me something. A secret. Something no one but you knows, something that’s never left your head.” As the Baron raises a single skeptical eyebrow, he hastens to add, “It doesn’t have to be something that matters, I’m not asking for a political advantage. Just something I couldn’t learn from anywhere but your own mouth.”

The Baron tilts his head, considering. “My wife,” he says, and Tarvek starts. Somehow in making the connection that the Baron was Gil’s father, he didn’t quite put together that that meant the Baron had a _ wife_. Or a woman, at least. “Her name is Zantabraxus.”

“Zantabraxus?” Tarvek repeats, sounding out the name. The Baron nods in confirmation. Satisfied, Tarvek takes the fast-acting poison pill he carries with him at all times and swallows it dry. As his vision fades, he catches the Baron standing up and shouting for a medic as Gil starts screaming.


	4. Chapter 4

Tarvek’s in the archives again and he races out, makes for the Baron’s office. He slams into the room, startling the Baron from his paperwork.

“Sturmvoraus?” The Baron scowls. “What are you doing here?”

Tarvek’s breathing too hard to speak, but as soon as he can he says “Zantabraxus.”

The Baron stiffens, leaning forward as the lines of his face deepen. “Repeat that.”

“Zantabraxus. Your wife.”

“Where did you hear that.” It isn’t a question, not really.

“You told me that yourself. In the future. You said to use it as proof.”

“Is that so. What else did ‘I’ say?”

Tarvek wracks his memory. “You...said you wouldn’t kill me?”

The Baron’s eyes narrow. “Why would killing you be on the table in the first place?”

“Uh. No reason.”

This is rapidly going downhill. He’s going to have to try again. He reaches for his hidden pouch.

Tarvek bursts into the Baron’s office. “Gil is your son and his mom’s name is Zantabraxus.”

The Baron’s face goes shuttered and cold.

Tarvek reaches for his pouch.

He tries to set it up like before, waits until he’s in the Baron’s office with Gil scowling from the other chair before he raises the subject. Though he doesn’t mention what he realized about Gil, this time. He doesn’t want to make the Baron mad.

When Tarvek’s finished with his story, the Baron leans back in his seat and thinks. A frown lingers across his features. Finally, the man says, “It’s unfortunate that you and your father have a poor relationship, but your story, while quite creative, is not enough to keep you on board, not with the prowess you have displayed at learning secrets you should not have found. But let it not be said that I am unfair. You said that there were others in the school who were spying?”

“_Everyone _ is,” Tarvek stresses.

“If you care to share any names, with evidence, I will ensure they face the same consequences.”

Tarvek stays silent.

On the airship home, he thinks. He thinks about what he’s done since the last time he was in Sturmhalten. What he’s learned. It was never enough before, but. But that was before he knew about Gil. So...so, maybe. Maybe that would be enough. Maybe that would end this and he could finally move on with his life. It isn’t much that he’d have to say, just a few words. He closes his eyes, feeling like he’s going to choke on his tongue.

The pill is light and tasteless, his saliva dissolving it into a warm liquid that seeps into the flesh of his mouth within a few seconds. He doesn’t even need to swallow.


	5. Chapter 5

Tarvek has a plan. He’ll let things go the way they did that first time, except he’ll steal a death ray along the way. And then, when he gets home... He’ll never have to relive this day again. 

But then, when the Jäger guard is hauling him to the Baron’s office, they’re stopped in their path.

By Von Pinn.

She looks far more frazzled than he’s ever seen her. Several hairs are out of place and one of her gloves is only pulled up to a few inches below where it should be. “I’ll take the boy from here,” she snarls at the Jäger.

“Ho yez, ov cawse.” With a wink and a toothy grin, the Jäger saunters off.

Von Pinn stares down at Tarvek. “You.”

“Me?”

“Why didn’t you come to me immediately?”

“I...” Tarvek frowns. “What?”

“The Knot, child. Your wellbeing is my responsibility, but I cannot do anything if you don’t _ tell me_.”

“You know about Lachesis’ Knot?”

“You would not believe what I know about Lachesis’ Knot," she tosses out like it's nothing. "It has been a _ month_.”

Tarvek processes that last sentence. “How do you know how long it’s been?”

Von Pinn fixes him with a gimlet stare. “How do you think?” He stares back at her, reeling. She adds, “I did not know it was you. Not until Baron Wulfenbach told me what you had told him, which you had _ not _ told me. I would have ensured you came back, but I was interrupted because”—she does not sugarcoat this, just as she does not sugarcoat anything—“you died _ again_. Enough. We are putting a stop to this. Now.”

He looks up at her, not breathing. She takes his hand and begins leading him towards the Baron’s office, but his feet aren’t working. With a twitch of her lips, Von Pinn lifts him up and brings him there herself.


	6. Chapter 6

The Baron looks up when they come in; Gil slides down in his seat. Somewhere along the way Tarvek wrapped his arms and legs around Von Pinn’s torso as tight as he could make them, and he isn’t letting go now.

“He’s staying,” Von Pinn announces.

The Baron’s brow furrows. “You haven’t heard anything of what happened or what I was considering.”

“I have, in fact, and he’s staying. Moreover, I highly suggest you send a questor to investigate his father.” She turns her head to Tarvek, gently lifts his chin so his eyes meet her own. “Do you want to share what you’ve been through, or would you prefer I do it?”

Tarvek hesitates. “I inherited a thing that lets me go back a day when I die, and my dad...he likes to make sure I make good choices. Like not getting kicked off the Castle. But it kept happening.”

“Twenty-eight times, Klaus. Twenty-eight deaths.” Von Pinn glares. “And he was still on board for several of them.”

The Baron starts to respond, but the question bubbling out of Tarvek’s lips makes it there first. “How do you know?” he says. “You said you knew all sorts of things about it, and you sort of said that you remembered too, but you’re not descended from the Storm King. Are you?”

“I—” She stops abruptly. “Well. The family is large, and has had many offshoots and unacknowledged children over the years. I got it from my father. I live through the Knot just as much as you, child, no matter how long or _ short_.”

“The Knot?” Gil asks.

Von Pinn lifts the shoulder that isn’t occupied. “Lachesis’ Knot. Kronos’ Gyre. His family has all sorts of fanciful names for it.”

The Baron purses his lips. “I had come across rumors... Not that I don’t believe you, but if you could provide some evidence...” He notices Tarvek cringing. “What is it now?”

Tarvek gives his answer to Von Pinn, quiet. “He gave me a name to say for proof, but then when I tried to use it he just got mad.”

“I won’t get mad,” the Baron insists.

“Z...Zantabraxus?”

“Ah.” The Baron nods, slowly. “I can see how I would react strongly if I was not expecting it. Well.”

“IalsosaidIknewGilwasyourson,” Tarvek says, jerking his head into his shoulders. He flexes his hands into Von Pinn’s back to try and keep them from shaking. He can feel her stiffen a little against his limbs, but she doesn’t try to get him off or take away her arm from where it’s curled around him.

The Baron stills. “I don’t think I would have told you that.”

“You didn’t,” Tarvek mumbles.

A hint of a frown settles across Von Pinn’s features. “What scares you so much about sharing that?” she asks.

“I... He said he wouldn’t, but I didn’t...” He takes a breath and looks the Baron in the eye. “My father has secrets he would kill to keep. Isn’t this one of yours?” Despite his best efforts, his voice cracks on the last word.

The Baron’s mouth is tight and thin, his eyes dark. “Many men are not like your father. I should like to think I am one of them.”

“Okay,” Tarvek agrees, because what else is there to say?

“I would not, and _ will _ not, kill you for knowing this. For searching for it? I might well have sent you home, at _ most_.” He grimaces. “Though it seems that despite my intentions, sending you home was itself fatal, and for that I apologize. In any case, giving you over to your family now would be worse than useless. No, you’re staying right here where I can see you.”

Oh.

Okay.

Gil gets up and tugs at Von Pinn’s glove, and after a silent exchange, she hauls him up to her other side. He reaches around to grab onto Tarvek’s hand and gives it a squeeze.

Tarvek squeezes back.


End file.
